Kenny
by Strangerine
Summary: The story of a passionate and broken man. Contains spoilers for Season Two, Episode Five. Cover Art belongs to Names76 @ DeviantArt. (Now edited!)


**Normally I don't like re-editing stories after I've finished them, but I first posted this right after I finished Season Two. At the time, the ending (that I got) touched me deeply and I felt like this needed to be written. Now (months later) I've edited it and it's not _too _different, but I still think it flows a little better.**

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><p>Kenny felt Jane's arms start to give. Sweat dripped down his forehead as he thrust the knife down between them, blood thundering in his ears as his heart raced. He no longer felt the snow falling around them. He knew only his fury and the woman lying under him. He didn't see the fear in Jane's eyes, didn't hear Clementine screaming his name a few feet away. One thought filled his mind, feeding him and fueling his rage. <em>She killed the baby. <em> Rebecca's baby. _His _baby. Baby-killer. She deserved to die. Everyone did. Everyone, for letting him suffer and hating him, fearing him even while everything he loved was torn away from him, over and over again.

He felt Jane's grip weaken. Any moment now, any moment...

A single gunshot rang out, and Kenny's jaw dropped as he jerked backward, the bullet slamming into his chest. He dropped the knife and fell to his side. He felt the blood dripping from the wound and darkness crept at the corners of his vision. His eyes, already damaged from Jane's gouging, fell shut. Through the sound of his heartbeat roaring in his ears, he heard Clementine whimper to Jane, asking if she was all right. He didn't hear Jane's reply.

As the blood turned the frost under his head red and damp, he felt Clementine kneel beside him. "Clem," he murmured, knowing he had limited time left to speak. He forced his remaining eye open and looked at the girl, who wore streams of tears on her cheeks. He smiled softly. "You made the right choice. I let you down..." He paused to cough. "I let everyone down..."

"Why did you make me do this?" Clem whispered, her young voice choked.

"I'm sorry, Clementine. We almost made it..." the older man lifted his head to smile at the little girl. "We were close, weren't we?" His smile faded. "I thought I wanted this...asked for it...so many times...now that it's happening," his eyes widened, "...I'm scared. I'm afraid, Clem."

"It's okay, Kenny," Clem said, placing her small palm in his larger, colder one. "You're...you're going to see Katjaa and Duck. You're going to see them again."

The man let out a final, relieved sigh. "You're always good for a smile." And then, holding Clem's hand in his, Kenny died.

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><p>Truth is, Kenny was never the kind of man to lay down and accept his fate. When civilization collapsed, many people died, through weakness, or suicide, or starvation. But not Kenny.<p>

The Floridian took his wife and child across the country and found a group to call his own. He wanted to be safe with the ones he loved, wanted to fight like a warrior of old for what he believed in. But a piece of him died with Katjaa and Duck, all those years ago. He left his heart with their bodies, and while he lived, his soul felt no different from a walkers.

And he wanted to die. Desperately. He craved it, wept for it, wanted to join his family in the world beyond. But the man he was kept him from taking his own life. And when that boy, Ben, got himself stuck during that last run from walkers, Kenny thought it would be his way out. He wanted to die for people he cared about, wanted to die a hero and be remembered for his sacrifice.

But he didn't die. He gave his all, shooting and screaming and running like mad, and he didn't die. He kept running, all on his own, growing angrier and more reckless every day, in the hope that maybe someone would be scared enough to kill him. That someone would give him the release he craved.

These thoughts were never conscious, no. They lingered in the back of his mind, guiding his actions and his hatred. Eventually he found his way up north, found a group. Found Sarita. He wanted to love Sarita, to try to fill the gaping hole in his life. And it worked; almost. He forced himself to smile, and told himself he was happy. Even though he knew it was a lie.

But then Clem showed up. Clem, a symbol for all he had lost, now coming home to him. He wanted to take her for his own, make her his daughter and try to rebuild the group they had. Clem meant Lee, Katjaa, Duck, everything that had been good and kind in the world. And Kenny wanted her to care for him so much it hurt.

Then Carver came. And the old anger came back, the old fire as his world came crashing down once again, making him kick and scream against the change. He saw the way Clem talked to Luke, to Jane, saw them filling her head with their lies. He saw the way the other members of the group started to shy away from him. Luke and Jane meant change, and they threatened to take Clem away. So he hated them.

And slowly, everyone started either dying or betraying them. Luke, Arvo, Mike, Bonny...they all left him behind. Left him alone with AJ and Clem.

AJ. New life. A son, like the son he had lost. Between AJ and Clem, Kenny could start over. Run away, have the family he always wanted, with no one else in the way. But Jane kept fighting him. Jane was the one person who had survived, who had beaten all odds and always opposed him. And then she killed a child.

Kenny couldn't have known, then, that AJ was still alive. But there, he snapped. The hatred building up inside of him, let out slowly over the years, took over his mind and turned him to madness. He fought Jane, fully intending to kill or be killed, because she dared to destroy his dream of peace and family.

But Clem stopped him. The sweet, innocent little girl he knew all those years ago, now stripped of her childhood and forced to become an adult in a world of monsters. Poor, beautiful Clem. But she'd given him what he wanted. She dared to do what others would not and let him have peace.

And as he died, he thanked her for that. Maybe he could have done things differently, maybe he could have saved Katjaa and Duck, maybe he didn't have to become the monster he did, but one thing was sure in his mind. His last thought, the one idea he'd kept close all these years.

Kenny was a fighter.


End file.
